Dear Clyde,
First of all, I want you to know that I don’t hate you. How could I? You’re literally a part of me. Specifically, you’re the chicken cutlet sized growth at the top of my right butt cheek. If you want to delve into your full villain origin story, and I feel like you do, a totally inexpensive ultrasound revealed you’re one of two things. You’re either a blood-filled hematoma or a Morel-Lavallée lesion, you know, a traumatic soft-tissue injury where a violent shearing force, a “degloving incident” if you will, tears the skin and fat layers away from the underlying muscle fascia, creating a fluid-filled pocket.
Maybe it’s not fair to be angry with you, Clyde, because I guess in a way I made you. I did, in fact, deglove myself by falling down my basement stairs. But much like Dr. Frankenstein and his monster, just because I made you doesn’t mean I want you. I mean, you’re kind of creepy and gross. [Brief aside: did anyone see the recent Frankenstein movie where the monster was like strangely hot? And then you felt really uncomfortable with yourself for thinking this reconstructed monster human was a hotty? No, just me? Anyway, Clyde, don’t get excited. You’re not hot-gross like modern Frankenstein’s monster, you’re plain old gross-gross, unless someone’s got a chicken cutlet kink.]
But here’s the thing, Clyde. To paraphrase Motley Crüe, I don’t want you go away mad, I just want you go away. I’ve been living with you for over two months and I’ve had enough. I want to be able to wear a bathing suit or jersey-knit clothing without having a weird half-J-Lo situation. I want my husband to be able to swat my ass without stopping to calculate which butt cheek is the one he’s allowed to slap. I want to be able to run without you being a literal pain in the ass.
And while I’m neither a mermaid nor a closeted gay man in the 80’s (do your research!), I so do want to be up where they walk, up where they run. Up where they stay all day in the sun. I want to be part of your world that can do normal butt stuff (that’s stuff for people with normal butts, not butt stuff but for normies).
Clyde, you might not know this (I mean, how could you? You’re literally a fluid-filled growth on my upper right buttock), but running is important to me. It’s how I maintain the delicate equilibrium that exists between my diet of cheese, cheese-related products, and Tony’s Chocolonely and my weight. It’s how I socialize with my friends. It’s how I find time to listen to my audiobooks. I can only walk so much, Clyde, and I need to find out if this bakery the hockey player is opening with his best friend/manager’s sister is gonna work out. I like running so much that I once ran every day for like 2 1/2 years and then did it again for 3+ years. The only things that have previously stopped me were a poker chip set dropped on my foot (by me) and stupid Covid. Clyde, you are worse than both of those things.
One day soon (pending my consult with a surgeon), you’ll be gone, Clyde. You’ll either live in a jar on some creepy hospital janitor’s shelf or rearranged in some other area of my body (i.e. my boobs) if I can do some back room wheeling and dealing with my surgeon. That’s the kind of stuff you discuss during a surgical consult, right? Like, hey doc, what if you were a real buddy and redistributed Clyde around my boob area? No one needs to know!
And when you’re gone, I’ll throw a big going away party with butt themed decorations and we’ll sing the Chicks’ Earl but replace “Earl” with “Clyde.” I’m still working on the party details, but just spitballing so far. Just know that I will celebrate getting you off my ass and I won’t miss you one bit.
See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya (cause of that whole janitor’s jar thing) –
Natasha
